the beginning of hannam house

In late October 2025, Marine Serre — the French label synonymous with crescent moons, regenerated couture, and radical sustainability — opened its first-ever global flagship store in Seoul’s prestigious Hannam-dong neighborhood. The store, titled Marine Serre Hannam House, represents more than a retail expansion. It’s a manifestation of Serre’s vision of fashion as transformation, designed in collaboration with the London-based architecture firm Sybarite.

This Seoul flagship redefines how a physical store can operate in the digital age. Rather than a simple sales environment, Hannam House is a portal — an immersive, almost mystical experience that embodies the brand’s philosophical triad of mysticism, materiality, and change.

a world built on transformation

Marine Serre’s aesthetic has always balanced the poetic and the practical: recycled fabrics meet couture finishes; athletic silhouettes meet medieval motifs. Hannam House translates that hybrid language into architecture. The two-story building’s structure is conceived as a narrative journey — a spiritual passage from initiation to rebirth.

The entrance immediately sets the tone. Visitors are greeted by a monumental, mirror-polished steel arch shaped like Serre’s iconic crescent moon. This gateway functions as a symbolic portal, inviting guests to leave the mundane world behind and enter an immersive realm of transformation.

Inside, the material language unfolds in deliberate contrast: raw concrete walls meet luxurious red velvet alcoves; reflective stainless steel panels bounce light into dark corners; organic stone flooring converges with smooth lacquer finishes. This material dialogue captures Serre’s philosophy — that beauty lies in juxtaposition, in the meeting of what has been discarded and what has been reborn.

 

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design

Working closely with Sybarite, Serre envisioned the boutique as a “living organism.” Each space transitions seamlessly to the next, echoing natural cycles. The lower level embodies initiation and anticipation: subdued lighting, a restrained color palette, and sculptural mannequins introduce visitors to the brand’s universe.

Ascending the staircase — a spiral structure bathed in warm amber light — visitors enter the upper level, devoted to transformation and rebirth. Here, fabrics, installations, and reflective surfaces create a kaleidoscopic environment. The fitting rooms, cocooned in deep crimson velvet, invite self-reflection. Even the terraces are designed as breathing spaces, adorned with stone pavements and native plants that blur the boundary between the built and natural worlds.

At the heart of the store stands an installation: a small wishing fountain where visitors can toss engraved coins — a poetic gesture linking luxury consumption with ritual. It’s playful, symbolic, and spiritual all at once, bridging the gap between commerce and contemplation.

seoul as a spiritual home

Choosing Seoul for the first global flagship was a calculated and meaningful move. South Korea has become a creative and cultural epicenter — its global influence in fashion, beauty, and pop culture unmatched. Hannam-dong, in particular, has transformed into a luxury district frequented by artists, tastemakers, and the city’s cosmopolitan elite.

Marine Serre’s decision aligns with a new generation of luxury strategy: brands no longer look solely to Paris, Milan, or New York for prestige; they build new centers of influence in places where culture moves fastest. Seoul’s audience, young yet deeply design-conscious, is the perfect match for Marine Serre’s hybrid aesthetic — futuristic yet human, radical yet grounded.

Moreover, South Korea’s passion for storytelling and craftsmanship resonates with Serre’s ethos. Her collections — often crafted from upcycled materials — find harmony in a culture that values ritual, renewal, and transformation. The Hannam House becomes not just a store, but a cultural exchange point: Parisian experimentalism meets Korean modern mysticism.

experiential opulence redefined

In the age of e-commerce, where convenience often outweighs emotion, Serre’s decision to open a physical flagship might seem counterintuitive. But in truth, it’s a statement of belief — that the future of fashion lies not in quantity but in quality of experience.

Inside Hannam House, everything is designed to heighten sensory awareness. Lighting shifts with the time of day, reflecting the rhythm of natural light. Music, curated to evolve with each room, intensifies the sense of progression through a narrative. Even scent plays a role: subtle notes of metal and myrrh permeate the air, reinforcing the spiritual undertones of the experience.

This approach reflects what Marine Serre calls “eco-futurism” — a world where innovation and emotion coexist. Every design choice, from the recycled metal stair rails to the terrazzo flooring made of repurposed stone fragments, underscores the brand’s commitment to sustainability through material storytelling.

The mannequins scattered throughout the space are not static. They are positioned as if caught mid-gesture — like living entities participating in the story. Their presence turns the boutique into an evolving stage, blurring the line between retail display and performance art.

location

By planting its first flag in Seoul rather than Paris, Marine Serre has joined a growing list of independent fashion houses redefining the geography of luxury. The move signals both confidence and awareness: Asia now drives much of the world’s luxury growth, and Korea’s consumers, highly connected and style-savvy, are shaping global trends.

The flagship’s opening also signals an evolution in how Marine Serre wishes to communicate. The brand, once celebrated mainly for its crescent-moon prints and recycled fabrics, now aspires to offer something more experiential — a “cosmic continuity” between product, space, and philosophy.

As Serre explained in recent press remarks, “Hannam House is not just a boutique; it is a house of transformation — a place where our material world meets the metaphysical.”

style

What makes Hannam House distinct from traditional luxury flagships is its spiritual rhythm. The visit unfolds like a ritual — from crossing the metallic portal (initiation), to navigating contrasting materials (transformation), to exiting through the terrace into daylight (rebirth). The architecture itself narrates Serre’s cyclical worldview.

Even commerce becomes symbolic. Each purchase, encased in packaging designed exclusively for Hannam House, bears an inscription that translates roughly to “reborn in Seoul.” This echoes Serre’s sustainability mission: fashion that renews rather than replaces.

The store also plans to host rotating installations, live performances, and sustainability workshops, making it both a retail space and cultural hub. In an age when consumers crave authenticity and meaning, this holistic approach situates Marine Serre at the forefront of luxury’s evolution.

modernity

Marine Serre’s Seoul flagship is not just a store opening; it’s a manifesto rendered in architecture. It captures the essence of contemporary luxury: intimate, sensorial, rooted in purpose. It’s also a love letter to Seoul — a city that thrives on reinvention and self-expression.

In Hannam House, Serre and Sybarite have created a space that bridges the mystical and material, the human and the digital, the local and the global. The crescent moon — her enduring emblem — becomes not just a symbol of brand identity, but of perpetual transformation.

As visitors leave the store and step back into the streets of Hannam-dong, they take with them more than a product. They take an experience — a moment of reflection, a fragment of mystery, a reminder that in a world of endless consumption, true luxury lies in meaning.

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